When you look at it, apart from the inheritance tax thing, there's really nothing that you couldn't imagine being in Ed Balls' first budget. Higher minimum wage, lots of stealth taxes, austerity cuts delivered at a slightly slower pace.

Yes.

How do they get away with it?

They are all playing for the flabby centre ground, that's why (I guess). Labour and Tories can both get away with doing the same thing, they just pretend that they are different.

The same as Coca Cola and Pepsi selling essentially the same drink, all that is different is the label, the shape of the bottle and the advertising slant (Coca Cola is more wholesome; Pepsi is a teensy bit edgier).

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The Conservatives are Coca Cola, they're "the natural party of government" just like Coke is "the real thing". They represent conventional wisdom. People assume automatically that their policies will be the best for the economy.

Labour are Pepsi; radical, extreme, the unorthodox choice. They always have more to prove. People need convincing of the merits of their naive socialist ideas.

Truth is, Labour are as radical as Coke is wholesome and nutritious. Pepsi just copied Coca-Cola's recipe, after all.

There were ones on "LVT will be passed onto tenants" and "it's due to supply" if not the comment has been removed.BTW commentator "Blissex" has nailed the latest Tory policy:"Obviously the government scores all proposal as to their regional impact.

Cutting benefits will impact mostly the North, and raising the minimum wage will not impact much the costs of businesses in the South, but will impact more the businesses in the North, where I would expect the percentage of jobs paying minimum wage to be much higher.

The consequence will eventually be to boost the economy and this the house prices in the South."Unlike an income guarantee, which will go to everyone equally or job guarantee that would benefit Up North more due to the high % of min wage, Osbourne's policy is tuned to his base in the Southeast.